A bit of a Sewaholic Day

Saturday morning I finished my second version of the Crescent Skirt. My first one gets worn a LOT, it's become one of the 'go to' items in my wardrobe, so I thought it was about time that I got around to making the second version I planned way back when I got the pattern. The fabric I've used is some more of the spotty sateen that I used for my "seeing spots" quilt.

Firstly I need to show you this photo so that some of the below ones make sense - I don't usually pair a green skirt with blue and pink wellies, but you see it was pouring down with rain here on Saturday when I first wore the skirt so I was also wearing my Minoru:

(do you see the awesome street art lion in the background?)

And onto the skirt...

As I know from working with it before that this sateen is very fine and frays quite easily I decided to follow the suggestion in the sewalong and sew french seams wherever I could, which makes it look lovely inside:

I also used Tasia's fantastic zip method, which looks so smart, and no hand sewing!

 

Because the seam lines in the waistband cut up the spots somewhat I decided to emphasise those lines by topstitching either side of the seams with brown thread, using the triple stretch stitch on my machine:

And some pics of the skirt on me:

  

And a couple where the waistband isn't covered:

 

Finished: Crescent Skirt!

I showed you a sneak peek of my Crescent Skirt the other day, but now I have photos of the finished garment to share. I wore the skirt on Sunday but sadly there wasn't a potential photographer around during daylight hours. I wore it again today however, and my friend Jacinta kindly snapped some photos for me during my lunch break. Apologies for the slightly windswept look, it was ridiculously windy here in Melbourne today.

The skirt is a huge success. It is super comfy, both for sitting, walking and standing, not twisting or shifting at all. I definitely plan to make some more versions. The pockets are great too - they're really big so great for sticking things in, and best of all, having stuff in your pockets doesn't mess up the line of the skirt - most of my other garments with pockets you can at least tell when I have my phone in my pocket, but with this skirt you can't really tell.

As I mentioned before, I sewed this up with my friend Laura. We followed the instructions that came with the pattern and also referred to Tasia's fantastic sew-along posts for extra guidance and reassurance. They were very handy as they showed us photos confirming what we had to do. The only difference we did from the pattern was add a lining, which Tasia details how to do anyway.

Fun red lining!

We followed the instructions for inserting the zip into the skirt, and although it took a little while to get our heads around the method (although the photos helped immensely), once we did it we loved it! I will definitely be remembering it for other patterns, as it really leaves the skirt nice and neat on the inside and the outside. I definitely prefer it to an invisible zip, and it's much quicker than hand picking one.

Lovely neat zipper insertion, inside and out

One last exciting thing about my crescent skirt is that it elicited what Elizabeth refers to as an "unsolicitation" while I was at work today - a random women in the lift told me that she loved my skirt and that it added some much needed brightness to a dull day. That's the first "unsolicitation" I've ever recieved, so that made me very happy!

Two new skirts

Things have been quiet on this blog as I've been ridiculously busy in other aspects of my life - working during the day and trying to finish my thesis in the evenings doesn't leave much time for sewing, and even less time for blogging. However, I have managed to fit in a little bit of sewing by combining it with seeing my friends in the form of "sewing dates"/"crafternoons".

Today I took some time off from writing for one such "crafternoon" and managed to finish two skirts that I've been working on for a while. The blue and white gingham skirt I have been making with Mindy, and the red-flowered skirt is my crescent skirt that I have made together with my friend Laura as part of Tasia's sew-along. (By the way, by making together I don't mean we will be sharing the skirts! We have made a skirt each but made them together.)

Proper photos of the finished skirts will be posted in due course once I've worn and photographed them.

Crescent Skirt - cutting time!

I have some exciting news relating to my crescent skirt (exciting to me anyway); my friend Laura is making one too, so we will be sewing the skirt up together! She's bought some beautiful fabric for her skirt, isn't it fun:

Laura's fabric - a lightweight cotton sateen (I think), from Lincraft

We got together for a few hours over the easter weekend to make up muslins. We only muslined the waistband to check the fit, and measured the skirt pieces to check the length. The fit was pretty good - I am pretty happy with the "out of the envelope" fit and didn't make any changes. We made a couple of alterations to Laura's waistband, and then reminded by Tasia in her sew along post went back and also made the same changes to the waistband facing.

My waistband pieces

Then the other night we got together for dinner and cut out our fabric pieces. I realised after cutting out my waistband pieces that I would have preferred to "block fuse" the interfacing to the fabric rather than cut the pieces out separately, so that's what I suggested Laura did instead.

Me cutting out the interfacing separately to the fabric

Because her cutting layout was a bit tight we couldn't do a proper block fuse, so instead I got her to cut out pieces of fabric about an inch bigger than the pattern pieces, and then cut the interfacing about the same size. After pressing the interfacing onto the fabric to fuse the layers she cut out the final pattern piece - which means she knows that the fused fabric+interfacing is exactly the shape of the pattern piece and hasn't become distorted when the two layers were joined.

Laura cutting out her pattern pieces after fusing the fabric to the interfacing

So now our fabric is cut out and ready to go for when the sewing steps of the sewalong are posted.

Lastly before I forget, I also bought some lining for my skirt, isn't it fun:

Crescent Skirt - Fabric

My copy of the Crescent Skirt pattern arrived last week (in 5 short days!), and I've already bought some fabric to use for the skirt:

It's a printed poplin, which the pattern envelope suggests as a good fabric choice. I picked a darker print so that I can wear the finished skirt with tights and it'll hopefully make a good autumn/winter/spring skirt.

I think I'll also be lining the skirt so that it doesn't stick to my legs when I'm wearing tights, but I need to decide what kind of fabric to line it with.

I can't wait for the sew-along to start!